Jake Sisko
Jake Sisko has a surprisingly healthy mental outlook considering the traumatic childhood of losing his mother at age 11 during the infamous Borg massacre at the Battle of Wolf 359; he was unconscious when his father barely saved him from their wrecked cabin on the U.S.S. Saratoga and fled to escape pods. The memory is ever-present but only occasionally haunts him, as on the fourth anniversary of her death, whenever the Captain leaves for a risky mission that might leave him orphaned again, and when the chance to meet the mirror-universe Jennifer Sisko lured him into a trap in that dimension in 2372. Jake shares a deep love and familial friendship with his father that has greatly buttressed the normal strains of his teenage years; the love is echoed with the bond he has with his grandfather Joseph, although visits spent helping out in the kitchen and garden are not seen as fun. At times the young man has shown more openness and concern for his dad's romantic life than his own, having been uncomfortable initially discussing dating and his career goals but able to introduce his father to freighter captain Kasidy Yates in late 2371. He knew Captain Sisko had finally accepted DS9 as "home" when he took his ancient African art collection out of storage on Earth earlier that year and brought it to the station. As a young boy Jake loved his nursery's ceiling starfield as a child and wondered why it couldn't go along when the Siskos moved - a tale his father loves to tell. Before Wolf 359, the family had enjoyed their most memorable vacation ever on a camping trip to Itamish III, where his mom had taught Jake to water-ski. Having settled into life after his mother's death at the Utopia Planetia yards on Mars, just next door to Earth, Jake was not happy with the move to the dilapidated DS9 in 2369. Out of mutual loneliness there he soon met and befriended Nog, a Ferengi boy often in trouble; the two were among only 14 children aged 8 to 16 on the station at the time, mostly Bajoran. Among their interests the two boys enjoyed girl-watching, but the elder Sisko had worried about Nog's too-great influence in everything from staying up too late to girls to a lack of ethics. He need not: Jake had already learned his dad's values of tolerance, kindness and honesty and is responsible with his own priorities between work and play. Jake was bothered when Nog once wanted him to lie for him about stolen homework and then pulled out of school on Rom's order, but the boys decided to ignore their fathers' demands and Jake tutored him to read. If not for Jake's patience, Nog would never have made their Noh-Jay Consortium pay off or perhaps have the confidence, maturity and broader outlook to apply for Starfleet Academy years later. He and Nog were Keiko's last two pupils when she closed the school in 2371, and she tutored them privately after that until she left. They were on the verge of splitting forever, but when Sisko admitted he had been wrong about their friendship the two made amends as Nog left for the Academy - even though he too had thought Nog was joking about his academy application. Jake recalls his first date was to be in early 2370 with a Bajoran girl, Laira, but it was called off when her father forbid it amid the growing xenophobia fanned by The Circle faction at the time. His next known "date" a few months later was with Mardah, a Dabo girl, then 19; supposedly just tutoring her in entomology, he soon decided she was the love of his life and wanted his dad to have her for dinner. A year later it finally happened; Captain Sisko shocked him by inviting her, but though nervous they hit it off. Mardah's sudden departure weeks later for schooling on Regulus III left him glum, but he was soon caught up by Lwaxana Troi Zanthi fever - which only acts in case of latent pre-existing emotions - and fell hard for Kira during the Gratitude Festival. A relationship with the human girl Leanne was nearly sabotaged by Nog's Ferengi attitude on a double date; he was still seeing her weeks later at the time he joined his dad in the Bajoran solar sailer. The depths of his bond with Captain Sisko were borne out again when the young man decided that a Starfleet life was not for him, and was relieved when his surprised father supported his ambitions to be a writer. His interest in poetry had been exposed only months before at the infamous dinner with Sisko and Mardah, and still later he'd been embarrassed about his writing and an early story about the Maquis. Keiko, who had encouraged Jake with his blossoming interest, helped him secure a scholarship to the Pennington School in New Zealand in 2371, though he deferred it a year - again out of concern about leaving before his dad had begun dating. He visited the school again a year later during the Dominion invasion scare and has since not spoken of any plans there. category: DS9